


Panacea

by cat_77



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backround character deaths, Gen, Pandemics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cure and the cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panacea

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for background character deaths of the majority of the world's population.
> 
> Written for the "pandemics and epidemics" square at hc_bingo. There is no way this isn't going to be AU for the series.
> 
> * * *

Cosima had done it. Well, technically, Cosima and Delphine had done it. What they had done was still up for debate; they were either saviours or murderers, depending upon your point of view. Sarah was on the side of one, but knew the authorities would be on the other. It didn't matter, not really - it wouldn't be the first time she had opposed the law and sure as hell wouldn't be the last.

"I honestly don't know whether to pleased or not," Fee admitted. He plopped down beside her on the sofa, bottle in hand. He took a healthy gulp of its contents and then, like the good brother he was, offered her a fair share. 

"Go with pleased, it's easier," Sarah offered after the burn in her throat faded enough to let her speak.

He took the bottle back and levelled her a look as he levelled another draught. He wiped the cuff of his shirt over his wet lips and neither of them mentioned how they both checked to make sure it was smeared only with the gloss he favoured. "Okay, so, pleased," he said after too long of a pause. "Pleased that I'm not suffering some horrible disease like the vast majority of the world right now, but terrified at the implications."

"Fair enough," Sarah agreed. She tugged the bottle back, yanking when he briefly tried to resist, liquid splashing on the fabric between them.

He offered her a glare for wasting it, and she gave him one right back because, really, that's all they were doing right now anyway, wasting what may soon become a luxury item if the world went to shite the way it appeared to be headed. Mrs. S would have something to say about that. Probably. No, definitely. She had already had plenty to say when everything first came down, most of it apologies interspersed with the occasional profanity and promises that she would make this right. Sarah looked over to where Kira was cheerfully colouring away, not a blight about her, not even a cough, and had to force herself to care.

Cosima had been looking for a cure, both for herself and the other clones infected with whatever sickness the Dyad Institute had found fit to make them susceptible to. She had found one, but the idiot Neolutionists had gotten their hands on it and fucked it up. Cosima and anyone with the custom genetic code that the Institute had added to their biology were saved. 

The rest of the Earth's population was hosed. 

People were collapsing left and right, coughing up blood as their internal organs did their damnedest to liquefy. Only about twenty percent of those exposed had a natural immunity, and only about ten percent of the susceptible survived. The clones - and thankfully the single offspring ever produced by one of the clones - were safe. Delphine underwent what looked to be an incredibly painful procedure, still got a mild version, still got hospitalised, but managed to pull through.

Mrs. S didn't even have the good grace to get a sniffle.

The kicker was Felix: he had yet to show a single symptom. Mrs. S didn't look surprised and, after some quiet and heated conversation with Delphine, either did she. Cosima was looking into it, promising to put her computer skills to good work, and they were pretty much waiting on her for an answer because Mrs. S wasn't sharing a damned thing.

So Sarah and Fee, foster siblings extraordinaire, sat secluded in his loft, downing a bottle of the good stuff, news on mute in front of them, open laptop and scribbling monkey of a charge at their sides.

And then the emails started coming in.

The first was from Paul, bounced through several fake accounts to reach them. He claimed he had been infected, but that the Dyad group took care of their own. The between the lines message was that he had undergone a procedure similar to the one Delphine had suffered, and now looked good to make it through to the other side. 

Next was from Alison. Her husband had passed and her adopted daughter was showing the first signs. She didn't know if someone so young could survive the procedure, even if she would be eligible. Her usual contact with the Dyad medical team wasn't responding, so it didn't look good. Fee forwarded the email to Cosima before Sarah got the chance to, knowing she was the most likely to have a source, or at least to be able to replicate what she had already done for her own loved one.

That email had gone through at nearly the same time one came in from the same person. Cosima, eloquent as always, had titled the subject line simply as, "Holy Fuck." Sarah looked to Fee who looked to her with an expression she knew they shared. They were used to their pseudo-sister and her overreactions by now, but the severity of such had greatly reduced in recent months. Sarah opened the message, and its attachments, and was chagrined to admit she repeated that subject line aloud as it really was the only fitting thing to say. 

The first was a list of clones both previously and newly known with a confirmation that they had yet to get ill. The second was a list of known survivors, specifically survivors that had yet to display any symptoms that were not clones like Cosima and herself. Fee's name was at the top of the list. Followed by Branson Kerns. Followed by Eugene Hastings. Followed by Christopher Wheeler. The names were meaningless, but the pictures in the third attachment were not. Image after image of what could well be her brother scrolled by. The hair was different, the tan versus pallor factor varied and some had some truly questionable facial hair, but it was him as clearly as Cosima was her.

Fee stole the laptop, pulled it over into his lap to check and recheck every entry. A snap of his fingers and she gave him the bottle. He took a pull, a large one, and handed it back for her to do the same. There were nearly a dozen variations of his own face, intermixed with a few of her own and a few random others that must have been those with accidental immunity or members of the Dyad group who had undergone the treatment. They both shuddered at the picture of the blonde with actual visible madness in her eyes and, even though it was probably supposed to be a good thing that Sarah's only actual blood family save for her daughter still lived, she couldn't help but question why her versus someone a little more sane.

The door to the loft squeaked open and Sarah looked up to find Mrs. S, a very contrite Mrs. S, standing in the doorway. "You knew," she said, because her gut told her not to question such a thing.

Mrs. S opened her mouth, a denial on her lips for a split second before she relented and admitted, "I knew." She slid the door shut behind her, but did not fully step into the room, leaning up against it instead. "I had to protect you, even if it was only two of you..."

"And a fine job you did of it," Sarah bit out.

Fee was far calmer, a mixture of surprise, sadness, and maybe a little rage in his eyes when he asked, "And that protection couldn't have involved some disclosure?" He flipped the laptop closed to focus on his surrogate mother, the only mother he ever knew. "Even after all this shite went down with Sarah and the crazies, you didn't think it was a good time to come clean?"

"I..." she started, but trailed off and hung her head with a sigh, the most defeated either one them had ever seen her. She looked up a moment later and simply repeated, "I'm sorry."

Sarah considered that for a moment, the urge to protect, an urge she had on a daily if not hourly basis with her own child, with Kira. And they were her children, weren't they? If not by blood, then by heart. She took them in, brought them to what she thought was safety, and raised them as her own. She kept their past a secret because she thought that way it couldn't hurt them, and then got so caught up in that silence that she couldn't tell when it was time to speak again.

Sarah glanced to Fee to find him staring right back at her, knew her expression was mirrored in his eyes. She nodded, one hand tight around the bottle and one hand tight around her brother.

"Fetch something aged and strong and then get your arse over here and tell us everything you know," Felix said, chin jutting out in a challenge.

There was palpable relief in the way Mrs. S's shoulders slumped and she pushed herself off the door, the automatic, "Watch your language, love," on her lips. She headed to the kitchen and dug through the cupboards, bringing forth packaged sweets as well as a bottle of something amber. "It's not much, I left when you were young and my sources all but dried out long ago," she warned.

Sarah shifted over in the sofa to make room for her, felt Fee press up against her side. "It'll be enough," she said, and knew it would be true.

 

End.


End file.
